


Monster with Silk Ties

by alexjanna91



Series: Adventures in Babysitting (Apple Pie Life) [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, BAMF Dean, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Gen, Kid Fic, Minor Violence, Protective Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 03:31:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexjanna91/pseuds/alexjanna91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is one thing Dean hates more than evil son of a bitch monsters. It’s men that leave hand shaped bruises on women and children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monster with Silk Ties

**Author's Note:**

> Timestamp to Dean’s Adventures in Babysitting. Some content may trigger, be advised.

The house was a mess. Kids were everywhere, balloons were everywhere, streamers were everywhere; Dean felt like his brains were going to be everywhere when he blew his own head off from the sheer chaotic torture of Party Saturdays. 

It had become a bit of a tradition, more like a habit, a horrible, chaotic, nerve devastating habit, to have a party every Saturday. It was the day that Dean got up at the ass crack of dawn and baked a cake, pie, cupcakes, cookies, or what have you from scratch as a treat to the kids for being such perfect little angels during the week. 

Dean had started to seriously question his own intelligence after he made that deal with Ben. 

As it was, he was just pulling the five-layer chocolate cake out of the oven when the doorbell rang again. Dean cursed and hurriedly set the cake on the counter to cool before pulling off Lisa’s truly ridiculously floral oven-mitts and hurrying on his way to the door. 

As he passed the living room where his kids were sprawled in front of the TV playing a bastardized combination of Texas Hold’em and Candy Land, Dean counted heads and compared the number to the list in his head of confirmed attendees for the day. 

He came up one short and smiled softly to himself. 

Yanking the door open, Dean smiled at the quiet, delicate woman and her quiet, freakishly well behaved son on the other side. “Jenny! You are looking lovely this fine morning?” 

Jenny blushed and ducked her head even as her lips curved up in a reluctant smile. “Dean,” she scolded him, “You shouldn’t say things like that.” 

“And why not?” He teased her with a devilish smirk. “I only ever speak the God’s honest truth.” He thought God was absentee dick and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth either.

Jenny looked him straight in the eye for a second with her eyebrow raised like she didn’t believe that for a second, before she dropped her eyes to the ground once more. 

Dean chuckled lightly at her incredulity and ignored the way he wanted to kill something when she hunched her shoulders shocked and mildly horrified by her own daring. 

“I-I’m sorry for bringing Thomas late, Dean.” She stuttered, having lost her courage for the teasing and joking. “I don’t know what happened this morning. I-I just-”

“Don’t worry about it.” Dean waved off her explanations, not being able to stomach much more of her anxious efforts to placate him. “I just pulled the cake out of the oven and the rest of the kids are fleecing each other out of their candy stashes in the living room.” 

Jenny lifted her eyes to his again at this and shared a quick amused smile with him. It seemed that the longer Dean had known her the smaller and more skittish she had become. Getting her to smile at him was a challenge and maintaining eye contact was like pulling teeth. 

He didn’t know if he was just extra intimidating with his roughed edges, his tattered clothing, and his visible battle scars or if she was just naturally shy around men, but it had started to grate on him more recently. When he’d first met her and the other women in the park she hadn’t seemed quite so… defeated. 

“It’s really no problem.” Dean assured her again when it became apparent that she wasn’t actually going to say anything. “I’m just glad Thomas got here before I started to serve the cake. With the rest of those vultures around, I highly doubt there would have been much left for him once they were done swarming.”

He got a small giggle from Thomas for that and Dean grinned wider. The kid, like his mother, was quiet and shy and hard to bring out of his shell. But once he was out he was one extreme bundle of energy. Dean had the achy back and the creaky knees from running around after him to prove it. 

“You want to help me get it all set up, Thomas?” Dean asked him, crouching down to be at his eye level. The kid blushed and ducked his head, leaning back against his mother. 

No matter how many times Dean saw the kid and chased him around the yard and jumped up and down with him on the trampoline, every time Thomas walked in the door was like the first time. He had to coax the kid into loosening up all over again. 

“I’ll let you have the first piece.” Dean wheedled at him with a wink. 

“Okay.” Thomas grinned and looked up at his mother for permission.

Jenny smiled sweetly down at him and pressed him gently forward. “Go on.” 

Stepping away from the door to let the kid through, Dean turned back to Jenny for a moment and smiled. “No kid can resist chocolate cake.”

She chuckled lightly, another blush staining her cheeks as she started edging backwards toward her car. “I’ll be back to pick him up at four.” She called as Dean waved her off then she was gone.

Watching her car pull away and drive off, Dean fisted his hands to keep the shaking from rattling all the way up his arms. He was itching, positively craving a weapon in his hands and something big, bad, and evil in front of him so he could rip it apart until all that was left were bones, guts, and blood. Or shoot it or hack it to bits with a machete until it was just a bunch of meat and hide waiting for the vultures to pick at it. 

Watching Jenny duck her head, shy away from his casual touches, and hunch as if to make her already painfully delicate stature smaller always made him crave the taste of rank monster blood on his tongue as it sprayed through the air with every swing of his arm. There was just something about her that made him think of a little hunted rabbit cowering in front of a hound. 

Shaking off the bloody thoughts and the thirst for violence like an old perfectly fitted coat, Dean stepped back in the house and shut the door behind him. He had a dozen ravenous children in the house and one very sugary chocolate cake to get them hopped up on. 

*

“Errol! Clark! I’m not going to warn you again!” Dean shouted out across the yard as the two boys in question started to seriously go at each other with the curved plastic swords Ben had begged for the last time Dean had let the kid con him into a trip to the toy store. 

Dean was both mildly impressed with the two boys’ talent for swashbuckling and seriously concerned for the safety of their soft squishy bits. 

“If I have to hunt for any skewered eyeballs in the grass I’m not giving them back!” He threatened eliciting much gleeful giggling and delightedly disgusted sounds. 

“That’s gross, Dean!” Squealed Melanie from her little tea party at the kiddy sized picnic table on the porch with Laurie’s seven year-old fraternal twin sons, Cary and Hugh. 

The two boys looked at once mesmerized by Melanie and completely horrified that they’d let the dangerously charming little girl manipulate them into wearing plastic tiaras and pretending to drink tea like the Queen of England. 

Dean chuckled evilly having no sympathy for the two boys and turned back to his monitoring of the rest of the kids out in the yard. 

Between the trampoline, the plastic weaponry, and the numerous small, large, fat, and skinny implements around the yard, it was marvel that Dean hadn’t had to set up a triage on the porch yet. He’d had a skinned knee earlier, but that had been easily forgotten after a few tears and a Batman band aid. 

All in all, this Party Saturday seemed to be relatively laid back. Dean was even relaxed enough to sprawl out comfortably on Lisa’s lounger nursing an ice cold glass of tea and working on his tan. 

Until the sound of a pained cry ripped through his calm and he was up and sprinting to the trampoline almost before the sound faded into the breeze.

“What happened?” Dean asked, trying to keep his voice calm and modulated as he knelt by Thomas’ tiny curled form on the grass by the trampoline. The boy was quivering and obviously in some serious pain, but he hadn’t uttered a single sound after that first cry, he was biting his lip so hard to keep quiet it looked about to start bleeding. 

“He came down wrong on the springs.” Sydney said anxiously as she watched the scene from her perch on the trampoline, her eyes wide and worried. “Then he just fell backwards off the trampoline.” 

“Okay.” Dean murmured as he stroked a soothing hand over Thomas’ head feeling the boy’s tremors through the entirety of his body. “It’s alright. Can you breathe, Thomas? Don’t move, just answer yes or no.” 

Thomas released his abused lip from between his teeth just long enough to whimper out a near inaudible yes. 

“Did you hit your head?” Answered with a gasping no.

“That’s good.” Dean assured him, trying to keep a steady stream of calm words, his tone modulated so he didn’t send all the kids watching this into a panic. “Keep still now, Thomas. I need to make sure you didn’t break anything.” 

Gently, Dean started at the top of the boy’s spine and ran his fingers over every vertebrae making sure everything was in its place and nothing was shifted or shattered. He got about half way down the kid’s back before Thomas suddenly cried out again and tried to arch away from his touch. 

“Whoa! Easy, Thomas. You’re okay. Just hold still for me for a moment longer.” Frowning, Dean continued his examination quickly with feather light fingers and the strictest of perfunctory movements.

“Nothings broken, but I want to take a look at your back inside, Thomas. Can you stand or do you want me to carry you?” The little boy, if possible, looked more scared and panicky than he had just after flipping head first off the trampoline, but he said he could walk and shakily got to his feet with Dean’s help. 

The walk into the house took longer than it normally would have, Thomas limping along with Dean supporting him as much as the boy would let him, the other kids trailing after them like skittish kittens, worry and childish concern leaking from their very pores. 

“Thomas is going to be okay, guys.” Dean assured them once he had the kid seated at one of the kitchen chairs. “Go back outside and play so I can concentrate on patching him up. No one play on the trampoline just yet, though.” 

He got some grumbling, but the kids were soon ushered out the house and back into the yard, giving the trampoline an exaggeratedly wide birth. 

“Okay, kiddo.” Dean crouched down in front of a hunched, quivering Thomas, Lisa’s first aid kit open and disemboweled on the kitchen table. “Let’s get a look at the damage.” 

It should have been simple. Thomas should have hiked his shirt up and Dean would have been able to apply some bruise ointment or a Spiderman band aid or just some freaking Neosporin and then the kid would have sat quietly for a few minutes while he got over his fall then he would be up and rocketing around the yard with the other kids like he hadn’t just scared Dean half to death thinking he’d broken his back or worse. 

Instead, Thomas was silent and stiff, curled so tightly in on himself that had his feet not been dangling an inch off the floor from the chair he would have been in the fetal position. When asked to turn around so Dean could get a look at his back Thomas looked like Dean had shoved him front of a firing squad without a last cigarette to ease his nerves. 

“I’m okay, Dean.” Thomas murmured in that soft near silent voice that grated so sharply on Dean’s nerves with its wrongness coming out of the body of a little boy. It made him want to shoot something. 

“You fell pretty hard, buddy.” Dean said trying to seem as nonthreatening as possible. He felt a little bit like he was trying to coax a frightened animal out of a corner with nothing but a moldy piece of jerky and a crappy smile. “Just let me make sure you aren’t bleeding then you can go back to playing with everyone else.” 

Thomas could have just acquiesced. Shown him the mother of a bruise already coloring on his thin back and Dean would have made some male-macho bonding comment about battle scares being total chick magnets and Thomas would have given him a fleeting, teary eyed smile and the afternoon would have gone back to normal. 

Instead, Thomas kept his head bent and his shoulders hunched, his arms wrapped around himself as if he were cold and said, “It’s okay. I’m clumsy. I get hurt a lot. I’m sorry, Dean. I’ll do better- be more careful. I promise. I’m really sorry.” 

The only sound in the room was the slight hitch in Thomas’ breathing and the furious sound of Dean’s heart thundering in his chest. 

_I’m really sorry._ The words echoed like a broken record over and over again in Dean’s head and he sat back on his heels and _looked_ at the boy sitting in front of him. 

Then it all suddenly synced together like some completely fucked up midnight showing of _The Wizard of Oz_ with _Dark Side of the Moon_ for an audio track; disturbing and only comprehensible when looking at it sideways.

“Thomas,” Dean said, voice more gruff and growly than he had intended, a strange explosive kind of calm blanketing him until he wasn’t in the vicinity of eight very young, very breakable children. “I’m not mad. I can promise you that there is literally nothing you could possibly do that would make me truly mad at you.” He took another calming breath when the only answer he got was a hiccupping sound that tore at his already fraying calm. “But right now, I really need to look at your back.” 

There was silence for a long moment and Dean almost thought he was going to have to try some other way of getting the kid to comply. Then Thomas lifted his head just enough to look Dean in the eyes. 

He felt like he was being weighed and measured and should those much too old, haunted hazel eyes find him wanting then he would have failed at what felt like the most important test in the world right then. 

“Promise?” Thomas asked, his voice not much louder than a mere whisper.

Dean held that heavy gaze, willing to crouch there for the rest of his life not even blinking if was what Thomas needed right then. He answered the little boy’s question the only way he really knew how, with the nothing, but soul seared, bone deep truth. 

“I promise.” 

Thomas sucked in a shuddering breath and with the barest of a nod slowly, stiffly shifted around until his back was facing Dean. Releasing a silent breath Dean hadn’t even realized he’d been holding, he reached slowly forward and gently lifted the boy’s shirt up far enough to expose his pale back all the way to the base of his neck. 

What he saw would stick with him for the rest of his life safely locked away in that box in his mind labeled “Shit That Could Make Me Gleefully Pick Up The Knife Again”. Not because it was so terribly gruesome or disturbing as anything else he’d seen in his long and varied life as a hunter of all that is nasty and evil and supernatural, but because he knew exactly what would have put bruising that severe on the body of a nine year old boy. 

The bruising was yellow and green in paces, old and fading, but denoting of deep hurts and forceful injuries. The skin was dark purple, nearly black in other places, fresh and smarting and Dean spared barely a thought to being mildly surprised Thomas could move normally enough to have been jumping around on the trampoline in the first place. 

The injuries were deliberate and systematic, the mottled coloring reflecting a pattern of blows that would have been quick and hard and nearly excruciating to a child whose body was all soft skin and fragile bones and delicate, still developing muscle. 

Dean had to close his eyes for a moment. The images of the few scabbed over welts and scrapes, the gruesome evidence of a pronged ring, were scorched into his retina. 

The sound a wretched choked sob brought Dean back to the situation at hand. 

“Alright, Thomas.” He said, his voice surprisingly calm and quiet given how loud his blood and rage were roaring through him like a flash flood. “I’m gonna get some bruise ointment on these then I’m going to put some band aids on these crapes. Is that alright with you?” 

When he got a silent nod in response he set about his job. It was smooth going -if you could call bandage deliberately inflicted injuries on a frightened nine year old smooth going- until Dean got to what looked like it had to be the most painful hurt of the lot. 

A deep jagged laceration surrounded by a black bruise in the center of Thomas’ back. Almost detachedly, Dean understood that the injury was caused when the pronged ring caught on bumps of Thomas’ spine with more blind force than deliberate precision. 

The only sound the kid uttered while Dean was working on him was when Dean gently rubbed Neosporin into the injury and prodded around the bone a second time to make sure it wasn’t chipped. 

“I know it hurts, buddy.” Dean murmured soothingly, the boy’s little choked off whimpers only serving to fuel his fury. “Just a little bit longer and then you’re all done. The pain medicine in this stuff will make it feel better. Just hold on a little bit longer.”

One last band aid, a swab of bruise ointment and Dean was lowering Thomas’ shirt back over his battered body. That seemed to be the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. 

It was almost disturbing how quiet he was, Dean thought as he cradled the shaking, quivering entirely too tiny and too fragile boy to his chest, being careful of his back, and soothingly stroking his hair and murmuring nonsense comfort into his ear. Thomas barely made a sound as he cried a river of tears into Dean’s t-shirt. His sobs rocked his body like an earthquake, his hitched breaths caused worry for his ability to actually breathe, and his clutching fingers were digging so hard and sharp into Dean’s shoulders he knew he’d have little finger shaped bruises dotting his skin. 

When Thomas had finally tired himself out and Dean had given quiet instructions to Ben to make sure none of the other kids managed to kill themselves while he was otherwise occupied, Dean pulled his cell from his pocket and dialed number five on his speed dial. 

“Hey, Lisa. I need you to come home right now. There’s a situation.” 

*

Now that he truly knew what he was looking at, it was shocking Dean hadn’t understood it before. 

Jenny Meyer stood before him, looking small and fragile, her blond hair falling into her face as much as her messy pony tail would allow, and her haunted hazel eyes never met his, flicking from the floor to the wall to Lisa and back, but never rising high enough to catch Dean’s gaze. 

The other kids had gone home early. Dean making the calls the moment Lisa stepped through the door. All that was left was Ben, Errol, who might as well just be living with them he was never at his own house anyway, and Thomas, who was sitting up in Ben’s room with the other two boys playing video games. 

Once the last of the other kids had gone home, Dean had finally called Jenny.

Now she stood in front of him looking for all the world like a skittish, frightened, _beaten_ rabbit. Once he’d known what he was looking at it was easy for Dean to see the whole picture. It made him a little bit sick that he hadn’t realized it sooner. 

“Jenny-”

“I really don’t know what this is all about.” Jenny talked over him, her body almost vibrating with nervous energy, her small delicate hands tugging and worrying at the sleeves of her sweater. She stuttered, her eyes permanently fixed on the floor now. “I-I’ve always been terribly clumsy. Bumping to doors and things. I swear I would probably walk off a cliff if I wasn’t looking at my feet.”

The nervous laugh she forced out grated on Dean’s last nerve. 

“You’re not clumsy, Jenny.” He interrupted her babbling, lest he be forced to whip out his gun and shoot something just to blow off a little steam. “You’ve got a dancer’s grace. You glide with every step and your legs are muscled and powerful enough to have carried you across a dance floor for most of your life.” 

Jenny was silent then. Her anxious jittering, her nervous fingers, her darting eyes all stock still. If her posture and bearing made her look any smaller she could be mistaken for a Who from Whoville. 

“Howard is a good husband.” She said, her tone too steady and very rehearsed. “He loves me. I don’t appreciate what you’re implying. I’m just clumsy.” 

Dean gritted his teeth. “You’re not clumsy, Jenny.” He repeated and took a slow deliberate step toward her. She jumped, but didn’t move away. Dean ducked his head and finally caught her gaze in his. She didn’t look away, nary a breath leaving her she was so very still as Dean slowly reached toward her and gently grasped her left hand in his. Lifting it he slid her stretched and fraying sweater sleeve up her arm revealing dark finger shaped bruises ringing her wrist like some kind of macabre body art. 

“You’re not clumsy.” He said again. “You don’t deserve this, no matter what your asshole husband says. You don’t deserve to live in fear like this, to have to hide bruises behind sunglasses and long sleeved shirts.” He paused and took a deep steadying breath. “You don’t deserve this abuse and neither does Thomas.” 

For a fleeting second there was confusion marring Jenny’s pretty, haunted eyes before a stark, comprehending horror filled them so fast it almost made Dean dizzy. 

“No.” She whispered like she was trying to convince herself. “No, Howard wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He loves Thomas!”

Dean had enough and he just threw caution to the wind. He was so angry he had trouble reigning himself in enough not to scare Jenny. “If Howard loves his son so much then why was Thomas’ back covered in bruises, some so fresh and deep I was afraid he’d injured his spine? If Howard wouldn’t hurt you then why do you both cower in fear every time a grown man comes within five feet of you?” 

“I didn’t know!” She burst out ripping her arm away from Dean’s hold looking so anguished and distraught she was near hysteria. “I didn’t know! I should have known! I would have left!” She cried and started to collapse to her knees. Dean caught her and sank down to the floor with her. 

“I was protecting Thomas. He said he wouldn’t touch him if I let him… He said he wouldn’t!” She sobbed suddenly into Dean’s chest clutching at him just has fierce and hard as her son had not two hours before. “I thought I was protecting him.”

Dean sighed and wrapped his arms around her lightly and rubbed at her heaving back soothingly. “I know.” He murmured into her hair. “I know you tried to protect him, Jenny. Now, let me protect you both.”

*

Dean stood in front of Jenny’s front door and stared at the wood like he could make it burst into flames just with the angry power of his mind. The house, even from the outside, screamed control freak with an unhealthy dose of OCD. It was neat; perfect lawn, perfect shrubs, perfect clean brick façade, perfect summer wreath hanging from the door. 

It didn’t look anything like somewhere Jenny would be comfortable living. Her sweet disposition, sunny outfits (long-sleeved though they were), and handmade jewelry seemed more suited to a riotous wild flower garden and gay-ass, whimsical yard ornaments. 

Even the door bell sounded like it had a stick shoved up its ass. 

Dean had left Jenny and Thomas back at home with Lisa where she could keep an eye on them both. When he’d walked out the door Thomas had been safely ensconced in his mom’s arms, hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows cooling on the coffee table in front of them. 

Dean had told them he was going to stop by their house and pick them up some things while he had a talk with Howard. Lisa saw him shove his gun in the back of his pants, but she didn’t say a thing. She just watched him walk out the door with a look in her eyes that said she had better not get a call to bail him out of jail later or there would be hell to pay. 

He’d sent her back a look that simply said, don’t worry. (“The cops won’t be called if there’s no body,” didn’t quite translate into silent eye communication.)

The door was opening and Dean got his first look at the asshole that thought it was okay to beat up on women and children. 

Howard Meyer looked like the consummate white collar, upper middle management douchebag; crisp dress shirt, loosened silk tie, absent polite smile curving at his middle aged face, gray hair at his temples and wrinkles around his eyes. His watch looked like it cost enough money to buy Dean’s car twice over.

Howard barely got a questioning greeting out before Dean plowed his fist into the smug fucker’s mouth. 

“Hello, Howard.” Dean said as his knuckles smarted and he grinned down at Howard’s stunned, bleeding face looking up at him from the floor. “I think it’s time we had a talk.” 

“Who the fuck are you?” Howard demanded as he started crawling back from the door and trying to wrestle his cell from the holster on his belt. “Got out of my house or I’m calling the cops!”

Dean took one large step over the threshold, slammed the door shut then strolled forward and stomped one heavy, steel toed boot down on Howard’s hand and applied pressure. “I don’t think so, Howard.” He said and felt a massive well of satisfaction at the sound of finger bones and plastic cellphone parts being crushed under his foot. 

“You see,” he continued over the sound of Howard’s pained yells, “I have a bit of a bone to pick with you.” 

“Whatever you want!” Howard gasped out. “Just take it. The safe in my office is open. Just take it all!” 

Dean tilted his head like he was thinking about it. Then he lifted his boot off Howard’s ruined hand and crouched down next to him. “Well, now that’s interesting, but you see, I’m not here to rob you.” 

Howard cradled his hand to his chest and looked up at Dean in disbelief. “What-”

“I’m not here to rob you. I’m here to talk.” Dean said reaching out and grasping Howard by his tie and yanking him up closer to his face. “About Jenny and Thomas.” 

There is was; that look of comprehension and anger. Howard’s face contorted with it.

“You’re that babysitter.” Howard hissed, expression twisted like he smelled something bad. Which considering he was hanging from his tie and his right hand was broken in at least four places was a feet of bravado and arrogance indeed. Howard sneered. “It’s none of your fucking business what I do to control my family. Did Jenny put you up to this? I knew that ungrateful little slut was spreading it for you.” 

Dean didn’t even dignify that with a response. He just slammed Howard’s head into his cold slate tile floor then hauled him to his feet and slammed him up against a wall. The bastard’s feet dangled six inches off the floor. 

“You know what I used to do to guys that hit women and little kids, Howard?” Dean asked, letting a little bit of hell escape from its box in his mind and burn in his eyes. “I used to cut off their fingers and hands. I would start on their first pinky knuckle and work my way up to the wrist, piece by piece. When they had nothing but bleeding stubs I gutted them from cock to crown.” 

He shivered as if in pleasure forcefully pushing down the bile rising in his throat and made a show of looking regretfully at Howard. “Too bad I’m reformed now.” 

Howard made a little whining sound that could have been abject horror and could have been pants wetting fear. Dean chose to ignore it. 

“But I will tell you what I am going to do to you. I’m going to let you live. I’m going to have fun beating the shit out of you, but then I’m going to leave and you are going to do three things.” Dean told him waiting for Howard to nod his understanding. 

“First; when Jenny files for divorce you are going to sign those papers no questions asked, you will give her everything she wants and you will not say one single solitary thing about it. Second; you will sign away all your rights to Thomas, you won’t request joint custody, you won’t request visitation, you won’t even be the asshole that sends him a birthday card once a year. And third; you will have until tomorrow morning to pack your shit and get the fuck out of this house. You won’t ever see Jenny or Thomas again or I will hunt you down and I won’t even bother chopping off your hands first, I’ll just kill you.” 

There was a breathless moment of dead silence. Dean wasn’t even sure Howard was still breathing and his eyes were the size of saucers. “Do I make myself clear, Howard?”

He got a jerky nod and Dean, satisfied that he’d gotten his point across, cocked his fist back and broke the asshole’s nose. 

*

Dean washed the blood off his hands with a stale bottle of water from the backseat of the car and exchanged his blood speckled shirt with a spare he found in the trunk that smelled faintly like engine grease and old fries. 

He’d cleaned out all the cash from Howard’s wallet and his little floor safe in his office. Then he’d packed essentials for both Jenny and Thomas; enough clothes for a week, toiletries, and anything else Dean thought they’d want with them. Namely Jenny’s jewelry and Thomas’s stuffed killer whale he’d specifically asked Dean to retrieve. 

On his way out the door with Thomas’s Sponge Bob suit case and Jenny’s floral travel tote bag his shoulders Dean paused by Howard’s quivering, bloodied form and knelt down. 

On Howard’s right hand there was a solid gold diamond pinky ring with big, sharp prongs. 

“I’m taking the ring.” Dean told the barely conscious man as he knelt down and wrenched the ring from Howard’s finger not even making an effort to appear gentle. He smirked as he twisted the pinky just so and heard the crack of a finger bone breaking. “Call it the first installment of your reparations to your wife and son.”

Howard screamed in pain and didn’t even bother trying not to cry.

When Dean walked back into Lisa’s house carrying Jenny and Thomas’ things with fifteen hundred dollars cash from the pawned ring in his hand he was met with a tight, tearfully thankful embrace from Jenny and a quivering, desperately clutching hug from Thomas.

Barely even looking at the envelope of cash he handed her, Jenny just stroked shaking hands down Dean’s arms and chest while she looked his face over for any sign of injury. She’d been worried about him Dean realized when she didn’t stop touching him until she was absolutely sure he was unharmed. She’d been worried that her pansy assed, douche bag husband would hurt him. 

The thought that her husband had her so afraid of him that she thought he could have possibly been a match for Dean just made his heart ache a little bit more. 

As he sat down with Jenny at the kitchen table to discuss her next step in getting away from the bastard for good, Dean thought that the nightmares he would have after pulling hell so close to surface would be completely worth it. He won’t be getting much sleep for the next few days, but right now Jenny looked like a world’s weight of sorrow and hopelessness had been lifted from her shoulders and a new fire had been lit behind her haunted eyes. 

Yeah, the nightmares are so worth it.

*

End.


End file.
